Confronting Matt Risinger | Failed Rental Remodel.

hey everyone me kevin here okay i have

made videos on this guy named matt

risinger who bought this house and said

he was going to turn it into a rental

and i think i made like five videos

telling everything that was going wrong

about it being a renter hood here's the

front door coming in and then to our

right is going to be a powder bath

oh my they're going to move the front

door shut the front door we've got that

power bath over there

move that over here

now we've got a much more normal much

more inviting entryway

i've had it i can't watch this anymore i

came into this thinking i was going to

see matt rising you do

a basic remodel and i've literally just

seen him

say he's going to move the front door

and then he's gonna move

the bathroom on a house that's on slab

which means now you're digging through

the concrete slab and if it's post

tension you're spending even more money

x-rays

i can't i can't do this anymore i'm done

i'm ending the video here well today

we're here

we have found

matt risinger's house so we're gonna go

up and knock on the door and see what

he's done looks like he's still working

on spending money here but look at it

we're here at the racinger truck and the

build show we're going to see what

they've done now i believe matt has

moved into this home which is different

than obviously what you would do for a

rental but i'm curious to see how much

money was spent because you all know i

hate spending money and i already see a

metal roof and a lot of spending going

on here so we're gonna have to confront

matt to see where all this money went

and why

oh there he is

hey there curious what's all the way

from california come on give me a hug

thank you thank you miller i'm so glad

you made it i'm here to confront you

about all this spending

i gotta see where it went

so the way that we met was i was gonna

do a thousand dollar remodel and you

gigged me on it and you were one hundred

thousand percent right i spent more than

forty thousand dollars on this house

well i'm excited to see piece by piece

where your uh more than 40k went

more than 40 i think you spent at least

40 on that beautiful metal roof i saw

walking yeah yeah yeah

i really did so matt tell me what was

what was the goal here it was passive

home uh you've talked about this on your

channel matt by the way talks about

amazing home remodeling and just

straight up building everything on your

channel yeah and how to do it with the

highest quality possible so tell me

about that all right so this started as

a remodel project that i was going to

use maybe as a rental in fact i'd

watched a bunch of your videos

learning about that

but i'm a little bit of an over-the-top

guy and so my

i was thinking oh i'll spend like 40 to

50 on this remodel as i got into it was

worse and worse the budget kept going up

and then at some point you know i lived

across the street at some point i was

like i would really love to build a

house for my for myself i've never built

one before for my family

and so then when i got into it i was

like well if i'm gonna build a house i

should build a bomber house yeah of

course and so i built it to passive

house standards and so now this is my

family home i have four kids i have a

labrador

we moved in about six months ago this is

so cool so the first thing yeah when i

walk in here i mean this first of all

everything looks amazing so whoever

designed this it's phenomenal tell me

about this i mean obviously you've got a

hardwood here you've got uh even on the

ceiling to match tell me about some of

the choices that you made here yeah i

mean i had great design help right i'm

terrible at design that is not my thing

it's not my thing i'm an executor you

know you give me a plan i can do it yeah

yeah so i worked with a great interior

designer great architect they helped me

figure this out but honestly i also had

a lot of help from manufacturer friends

and partners sure had a lot of people

either giving me crazy discounts or even

some free materials wow i didn't vary

the quality that i was expecting because

the last house i lived in

16 years

this house i expect to be in a long time

as well so it's almost like that forever

home is a little bit okay and and you

know i hate it when people say what's

the payback on x y and z yeah because

there really isn't a good payback for

building a good house okay right you're

not gonna sell this in three years

unless you're in a stupid market like

austin which has gone ridiculously crazy

right but if you're in middle america or

a normal town you know you generally

don't sell your new house after three

years of money on it so in other words

it's sort of like this is an investment

into your comfort and the way that you

want to live versus let's calculate the

perfect roi of

insulating your floor even tell us about

that you raised the floor here so this

slab on grade construction and where

your feet are kevin on these hardwoods

underneath these hardwoods is two layers

of subfloor and then an inch and a half

of rigid foam

so that your feet are not on concrete

how does that help you out i mean like

what difference in comfort am i going to

feel the big difference is winter time

because your slab sucks that heat out

like if if you're in texas and it's 30

degrees out slab on grade you're in your

bare feet you can feel that that heat

sucking out of your body and my mom

always told me i was going to get kidney

stones if i walked around with cold you

know on cold surfaces

yeah yeah

so i mean

first of all what i see is beautiful i

mean like you mentioned beautiful design

you've got uh the different colored

cabinets here which is super in right

now uh i mean beautiful hardware all

melee appliances you went all the way to

the ceiling you finished it off with

this gorgeous contemporary crown you've

got here

it it's beautiful but i know there's so

much more that you've put behind the

walls that's what i care about and so

what i'm curious about is how much did

this kitchen cost you

uh and and how much of that is visible

versus not visible yeah you can break

that option so here's what i always tell

my clients

is that when you think price per square

foot you can't think like the real

estate market okay because when you buy

a house as an investment or even your

personal house that price per square

foot is usually just the hvac footage

and when you build a house you have to

build everything you have to build a

garage you have to build a shed you have

to build a landscape whatever it is so

price per square foot is a weird and not

very good number to to compare to what

what if i just bought the house down the

street sure yeah so what we talk about

is covered foot

meaning if the garage is covered and of

course it is it's not a carport yeah or

even carports are covered you have to

think of the full covered square footage

so this house covered including my front

porch

uh is just shy of three thousand square

feet

so you're thinking you're in to the

project for about 900k

wow that's with the value of everything

landscape not land wow that includes the

landscape

cause i also have a really nice

landscape going on i really my poor wife

put up with my crappy landscape of my

old house for years i wanted this house

to be nice i've got an outdoor fireplace

going i got patios i've got a bunch of

steel planters it's kind of transitional

i like the traditional you know insect

cabinets and white and wood ceilings but

also like a little bit of the modern

touch yeah so like the guys are welding

right now in the front we're getting

some really cool landscapes see that

going on that's amazing i've always been

the guy who says look we should spend

what's appropriate for your family yeah

and for what you want and not think

about neighborhood or resale and also

i just don't i don't like moving i don't

want to change i hate change in my life

been married 22 years i lived in the

last house what 15 16 years

i like constant things in my life

and so i built this house to be here a

long time i built it really well it's

probably one of the more expensive

houses in my neighborhood and i'm fine

with that sure

thankfully austin has also gone up so

that

in today's market i probably could sell

this and make money on if i wanted to if

something horrible happened to me so you

bought it for like 450

can can i

offer you a six for it right now 600k

you know that's good uh probably

wouldn't take that

how much are the houses going for now on

the market well here's a crazy stat so i

paid like 450 for this

two and a half years ago this house back

here sold for 1-1 recently and it's not

even updated it still has a lot of its

70s

cabinetry

from what what just in real estate

appreciation yeah in the austin market

here that's crazy incredible

so i i mean so if you're into this for

900k

how much would you have spent on this if

you were going to go through with the

rental aspect

oh meaning if i would have rented this

yeah

i definitely would have backed off on

everything had this been a rental but i

could have made more videos then man

sorry about that

there was just some study about how uh

regular gas cooktops leak uh

methane and uh gas even when they're set

off they still leak a little bit and now

they're associating that with like

cancer and things and here's the thing

that no one does is you absolutely need

to run your vent fan

and especially when you cook with gas

because you've got a flame you've got a

very hot surface and there's really

microscopic park particles of both oil

and water on any surface in your entire

house including those those you know

cast iron burners yeah so you need to

turn on your exhaust fan no matter what

you're cooking especially with gas you

want to see that you want to see a

couple of cool things yeah let's see it

how much did you spend on light fixtures

can you break it out

yeah like just shy of 10k on light

fixtures that doesn't include my um

i mean that's that's a whole rental

remodel for me

i i gotta hear your opinion on uh on on

this kitchen this high-end kitchen

manufacturer

and how they compare to yours oh wow

it's electronic

um

uh the uh ikea kitchens oh

i'm always railed against ikea

i hate particle board

i just feel like they're disposable you

know if but they work if there's the

smallest leak everything blows up and

needs replaced

oh water leak can turn yeah

right yeah we uh

i get it i know whatever

we uh

this is insane it even extends down i

thought it was just gonna you know open

for you but no the whole ladder came

down full staircase come on up y'all so

we got to put a picture up of our first

kitchen ever my first home we put an

ikea kitchen in all in countertops and

everything was like 12k and i'm like yes

dang yeah we kept getting quotes for

like 40 or 50. we're like we don't have

that's the budget for the whole house

where am i going here this is this is

insane come on up this is my conditioned

attic wait but it's not hot in here this

is the same temperature the same air

space as as as the rest of the house

is not a sealed attic you made your

uh attic

uh inside

an inside space for for the folks who

don't know the condition versus

unconditioned this is basically like the

inside of your home the insulation's at

the roof line rather than at the ceiling

plane and 99.9

of the house is in texas the insulation

would be at our feet at the ceiling line

and all these ducks would be running

into a space here that

in texas in the summer could be 140 150

degrees

and the air that's in these ducts is you

know 55 degrees so there could be a

hundred degree difference between the

temperature in the attic and the

temperature inside your ducks and this

little r8

uh required insulation is nothing at

that point well this is why you need

asbestos ducts

because it's higher insulation that's

right

so because the house is so efficient i

need a tiny little system wow this is

basically it's tiny it's like a one ton

air conditioner for the whole upstairs

of my house this is it that's all that's

all i need and then i have a separate

dehumidifier which i'm a big believer in

so we have a separate dehumidifier a

separate switch that does it

and then the crown of my attic my crown

jewel

this is my zender erv this is swiss made

this is the world's most efficient

fresh air system

fresh air so so this is bringing in air

from the outside yep so what you're

seeing here is this actually this pipe

on your left that's insulated yeah is

bringing in air from the cool side of

the house that's the north side it

brings it into this unit this is the

exhaust going out this is the exhaust

because it's exhausting right right and

in this core the air streams go near

each other but don't actually touch

and the core moves moisture and heat

between the air streams okay so that

even though it's let's say going to be

90 degrees out of 90 humidity yeah we're

exhausting a lot of that heat and

humidity out and it never makes it into

mine so you're just trying this is

basically just bringing

as it says fresh air in without sucking

in all the humidity and heat exactly

look at all these these hoses each one

of these little tubes you got you got 50

hoses here each one of them moves about

15 cfm just a tiny puff of air and so

now you know we spend if we average

americans live to 78 years old yeah we

spend 50 percent of our life or we spend

pardon me we spend 50 years of our 78

years on earth inside our house 77 out

of 78 for me

so why wouldn't we pay attention to

fresh air

and so now each one of these hoses

drops fresh air into each one of my kids

bedrooms into my bedroom and my

daughter's bedroom see that was a good

sales pitch right there because you went

from how much time we spend inside to

our kids

you got you got my heart right away i

mean you have two people i have two kids

wouldn't you want them to have a puff of

fresh air all night long rather than

living in their stale bedrooms with

their stinkiness but we got windows matt

but how often do you open your windows

do you leave your windows open all night

for your kids no

so now you're depending on the wind to

blow to bring fresh air into your house

that's true and i don't i don't do that

in this house i build it tight as a drum

this is a super tight house so and how

much more rent am i going to get with

this 0.0 percent

and how much did this cost this is

expensive this is about a ten thousand

dollar system oh

no but that but that doesn't include an

install i was gonna say i was gonna say

because i'm like not with all these

hoses but you know what i'm going to be

here a lot of years

and this house is the healthiest

freshest house here's here's a crude

comment but but one that i get a lot of

them we talk about tight houses oh

you're going to kill people if you fart

in the house you're going to smell it

for a week

the exact opposite is true this house is

so tight and so efficient it's the

freshest air of any house i've ever

lived in

now another thing i'm noticing here is

i'm used to like like really like

crooked studs and like splinters and

like these studs look really nice yeah i

know this is all i framed the whole

house with lvls this is like plywood

studs basically so so you have

engineered studs everywhere it looks

beautiful wait wait what's this matt

that looks original

what is this

a dirty lvl

yeah it's true it's not original okay it

just got weathered a little bit i don't

know matt i'm well because this is

beautiful is on top of these studs on

the outside i have two inch foil faced

poly iso oh my gosh so i actually have

enough insulation on the outside of this

house to meet code where i wouldn't have

had to put insulation on the inside if i

would do so you've almost now sound

rated this with how much insulation you

have

double the code requirement for

installation which is always a goal of

mine how much more rent for this lineup

um i think that's a dollar more because

you could point that out to a renter all

right absolutely get more for that this

is incredible i think there's a market

though for health kevin even on rentals

right because when you start talking

about your family your kids living in a

healthy environment i think um you know

i lived through the mold crisis of 2001

2002

where

i lived through chinese drywall as well

the mold crisis was in some respects

worse than chinese drywall because

people were suing builders and landlords

for mold issues in their house and

insurance companies were covering it

back then and in 2002 i was in portland

oregon super rainy climate oh yeah and

we at one in one week we got five

lawsuits handed out

and then we also had the aephis crisis

which is a a type of exterior insulation

that has fake stucco over it where you

all of your joints and then call it

good and the caulking would fail water

would get back there and there was no

way for the water to get out

and so in the course of a couple months

we probably had a dozen lawsuits that i

had to handle as a young builder

and that's where i learned that look

it's all about water management oh yeah

so you'll see my house has two foot

overhangs everywhere i have a big golf

umbrella out over this house

to make sure that it doesn't get wet

i've also installed all my windows with

really good flashings to make sure i did

that properly all the waterproofing

details are correct

and once you get the waterproofing right

then we insulate it really well we air

seal it really well and then i have tiny

equipment is all i need for a little uh

heating and cooling that's incredible

let's go back downstairs but it was good

meantime how do you

convince somebody that the air in their

home is unhealthy uh you know because i

i understand what you're saying with the

value of that but

how do people know how to value that if

i think hey

my air is healthy you know

i have the best air because i'm there

yeah

there are some monitors that you could

buy and kind of check on the quality of

your your air almost all the consumer

grade monitors are not great but you

know i think your best monitors your

nose okay you know you you can tell when

it's not when it doesn't smell right in

your house when things aren't quite

right

and people are more sensitive than

others what if i

get like a bunch of hepa filters and

just throw them into my

leaky you know

builder grade 2008 home that can help

but uh this famous guy joe stiebrick

says dilution is not the solution to

indoor pollution

wow

you know if i'm living in a in a house

that's continuing to pollute yeah hepa

filters can help but that doesn't solve

the problem

fresh air can help open your windows

that can help but we can't live with

open windows all the time we'd never be

comfortable unless you live in santa

barbara maybe right it's gorgeous all

year round

texas is not it's 90 degrees and 80

humidity a lot of the year sure if this

was going to be a rental how do you

prevent mold without spending a fortune

so the biggest thing that i'd recommend

is really good air sealing air sealing

because when air leaks into a house

around an outlet around whatever

when it comes in it's very likely going

to find a cold condensing surface and

that surface tends to be the back of our

drywall our drywall has a paper face and

paper is the perfect food for mold to

grow on a perfect surface

who wakes up the paper okay and and

because it's hot and humid outside that

air that's leaking in has humidity that

humidity could be deposited on the back

of the drywall but i mean like let's

maybe look at the front of your house i

mean

isn't it true then that

essentially every home would just have

mold in that case and there is probably

in every house some amount of mold you

just gotta hit it ah a little harder my

man

oh my gosh your splits

your minis so that's a double stack it's

a uh

so that's a city multi

and there's more than one unit that

comes in there this is just for my

upstairs this has three units attached

to it and that's my japanese heat pump

water heater i have more air

conditioners than you yeah

five nice well done but three of them

are from my office and one's for my

garage

and then that's my

makeup air for my kitchen exhaust

what do you mean makeup air so remember

my house is super tight if i was just

trying to suck air out i wouldn't be

able to

because it's so tight there's no air

coming back in well let's talk in the

front here so that vent brings air in

with a powered fan just probably this is

fancy i see push oh wow that's nice

and the powered fan turns on when my

exhaust fan turns on at the same time so

if you your hair is so tight is what

you're saying that if you turned on the

exhaust for your stove it wouldn't it

wouldn't work because it can't suck it

wouldn't it would exhaust a little bit

but there's so little ability for air to

suck in

that it would have a hard time it'd be

like

you know you you closing the end of pvc

piping trying to suck air out of it

without making a hole in that pipe you

couldn't suck air out of it but now it

sucks now it sucks

we're good to suck now okay good

so

you're you've been talking about trying

to keep moisture away from the house but

now you're building a planter bed next

to your house but you'll notice that

planter bed is six or eight inches down

on the foundation and we always want a

brick ledge showing okay so my floor of

my house is a couple inches above that

copper flashing because a lot of people

will actually build these planters just

like right up to under their water that

is a horrible horrible idea that's what

i was thinking usually when i see that i

see massive problems yeah and then i've

got a gutter which i had to change the

downspout because my fence is in the way

but i've got a gutter to catch that

water so there's no splash back too

splash back is really bad for houses so

if you see areas let's say stone is a

great facade because when it splashes

back you get this little green line

growing on your stone which says hey

there's a problem back there interesting

if you see a green line you need to fix

it and not just power wash it off but

like stop that water from splashing on

there

gutters are great for houses it's

probably the cheapest thing you can do

to benefit your house's adding gutters

yeah it seems like a lot of folks will

will take this mindset of like oh well i

want to put a planter there so i'll just

put some waterproofing membranes or

whatever which always fail uh but what

what you're really doing is beyond just

the idea of trying to seal it perfectly

you're also using common sense right

like let's not put a planter right next

to the house let's put gutters which i

mean these are not cheap gutters but you

could put cheap gutters you could put

super cheap gutters okay matt top top

five or ten things something like that

that that you would say

your average rental property owner

doesn't do that should do that's not

that expensive but maybe they just don't

know that they don't even know don't buy

modern wait sorry don't buy modern don't

buy modern okay don't buy modern houses

especially as a rental like all the

square concrete styles with flat roofs

and no overhangs now again maybe if

you're in like some climate that gets 10

inches a year

sure go for it no problem or there's

other parts of the the southwest that

are

very few maybe santa barbara gets pretty

santa barbara's pretty low rain sure

sure but everywhere else in the country

where you get 20 inches or more of rain

don't build modern don't do no overhangs

and flat roofs okay gutters are

excellent do good gutters everywhere put

the cheapest k style and you want yes

you said cheap put the cheap ones yes

i'm fine

i only did these because they were

stylish all right but kay's thought

would work just as well perfect okay um

and then the next thing you could do

check out my video i made kevin called

installation 2.0 okay

on on a resale like my 70s house when i

remodeled that house we went up to the

attic which was a traditional venomatic

we raked around the insulation to see

where the walls came up through

and anything that had a hole in it we

sealed up that sounds like a lot of work

it's not that expensive and it's not

that much work now you could do it

yourself someone could do it themselves

there's also companies that will do that

for you uh and man it's not very

expensive and you could double or triple

the efficiency and probably double or

triple the air quality of an older house

by just air sealing and then

re-insulating so

in other words this would be if if we're

in our attic where all the um

the top plates are so the top of the

walls people drill holes through them

for lighting or even just around cam

lights or or uh cables or whatever uh

you're saying just foam seal those

that's right air seal all those is that

going to prevent mold and my walls and

other things it can't okay i can for

sure because when that air leaks through

it's bringing moisture with it and then

your house is air conditioned and so

oftentimes on a remodel i find

wherever there is an air leak i find

mold in those areas

so that can help greatly and remember

mold that's not actively growing or

that's trapped in a wall cavity without

airflow it doesn't matter i could have

mold in this house you have mold in your

shower right now

and there's mold in the outside air what

we're trying to do is not have active

mold growth

in your air stream so by sealing it

you're actually also inhibiting

fresh air from getting to those wall

cavities and now you're able to limit

mold growth even if the other conditions

would be there for mold growth that's

right and if it's trapped in a wall and

there's no airflow out of that wall

it's not going to be a problem so

because that's the thing i think

landlords want to hear is what can they

do to prevent that longer-term damage

especially more human climates

i love the idea of more efficiency

because i think that's great for our

climate but i know landlords don't care

if their tenant's electricity bills

higher or lower

that's right but they want healthy they

want healthy tenants right yeah and i

think builders and landlords um could be

liable to people that say hey i've got

health problems from this house that you

rented me or bought me and the sensors

to detect those things are getting

cheaper and cheaper that's a good point

such that i think we're going to start

hearing from both land or both from

tenants and from people that i build

houses for air quality about the air

quality of their houses and it's even

more in the forefront now that covets

happen everyone knows what merv ratings

on filters are nowadays right

whereas three years ago no one knew what

the heck that meant nobody even knew an

n95 was sometimes like the construction

industry okay so uh what else what else

can can i think the last thing would be

seal your ductwork

put the asbestos back on tape it back up

well not necessarily tape mastic is

better and okay of course the asbestos

is a joke but if you have asbestos you

want to keep it out of your air stream

if it's locked in there and it's not

getting out you're fine asbestos is not

a problem

because that's another fear people have

is that like oh the asbestos is blowing

around your home but that's just the

insulation around the duct all right

it's not there's not that much asbestos

in american homes on ductwork it's

mainly on vinyl flooring

and some other places so you know if

you're ripping up your your old flooring

if it's pre 1960 there is a good chance

that it's got asbestos oh the old nine

inch tiles with the black adhesive under

it a lot of that asbestos you're better

off encapsulating that just put a new

floor over it and uh

buying new construction homes if you're

a new home buyer what are the the most

ridiculous violations of a new home

buyer you're seeing these days well the

biggest thing that i say the litmus test

for a good builder is how do they manage

water in their houses and you can really

tell that driving by a neighborhood

under construction you can see are there

holes in the outside envelope are their

windows properly installed is there a

sill pan underneath their windows you

know did they take care when they

penetrated for uh electrical or plumbing

they use a hammer to make those holes

and i'm a huge just i hate seeing

cardboard sheathing on houses it's

prominent among production builders

i would not buy a house that has

cardboard sheathing personally wow and

and if you could find out that it had it

i would frankly stay away from it what

do you do when the homes don't even have

insulation in the walls yeah i hear

people are spending money on dual pane

windows and i'm like

cool but you don't even have insulation

on the walls right so what

do you even just do you just stay away

from these or no i think actually those

50s built houses usually are built with

solid lumber or real plywood they're

usually pretty good houses i like 50s

construction

i would totally buy a 50s built house

and those are easy a lot of times to

retrofit because they weren't

complicated houses you can get up an air

seal you can insulate those houses big

attic spaces easy to move around in

exactly you could add gutters they

usually always have overhangs they're

built with more traditional architecture

typically i think 50s would be a great

house to have as a rental and to own in

general matt any any other fun exciting

things you can share us with the house

man we hit a bunch of stuff kevin yeah

uh i've absolutely loved it and i

appreciate you coming by to take the

tour with me today totally awesome so

how can people learn more about you uh

the build show is what i shoot and i've

also got thebuildshow.com with eight

other builders a remodeler and now some

tradesmen and women i have a

female drywall contractor in bozeman

shooting videos too

all about best practices go check out

thebuildshow.com that's awesome awesome

cool dude thank you man i really

appreciate it kevin thank you brother

thank you